Snorkeling in the warm water fairy grace of the coral anemones a cloud of tiny bright yellow fish following the squids until they got tired of us the big brown shark harmless scary shivering on the hot sand I already had my dormitory key out he must have been behind the shrubs hand over mouth knife at throat pressed up behind me I could feel he didn’t have an erection just a robbery but when I dropped my purse he cut the waistband and pulled my pants down I bit he stabbed I screamed he banged my head against the sidewalk twice hard then people everywhere kicking him sirens fading

Actually seeing them the paintings you’ve seen all your life ten eleven hours in die Louvre so tired knees are shaking you will never see this again never but the Mona Lisa was in Pittsburgh

Awkward hour with my father small cubicle neat but dusty glass of harsh cheap wine sad little man felt good afterwards the biting blowing snow I think I would have hated him if he had been happy

The pool in Devon’s World all those people earnestly fucking and sucking in the dim red light with the music locker room smell with chlorine and pheromones stepping around the foursome me giggling Charlie mortified at my disrespect

Florida pinewoods ripping sound look up at exhaust trail Jeff says Christ I hope that’s not nuclear it was

the light hurts my eyes

UP TEMPO

8 January 59 or 18 Dostoevski 427 or whatever. I’m ninety-six years old? This “week,” whatever a week is now:

Yeah, happy nineday. I mean Nineday.

Age 55.00 [18 Dostoevski 427]—Prime says I might want to keep this diary in terms of my age in real honestto-god Earth years, rather than exotic dates, at least for a while. She’ll compute it for me as I need it. To preserve what’s left of my freeze-dried sanity.

When I first came fully awake, this body was very frightening. Having been warned, having seen pictures of others, only helped a little. White and slimy like a fish’s belly, but dreadfully slack; anywhere on my body I could pinch the skin and pull up a rubbery membrane the size of my palm. Pale blue veins everywhere.

After a couple of hours of fluid dripping into the arm, though, I was close to normal except for the pallor. It was odd to watch my breasts inflate from flaccid wrinkles up to their normal unimpressiveness. Maybe I should have stayed hooked up a while longer.